Committee on electoral reforms: no meeting of parliamentary body held for last four months

No meeting has been summoned for the 33-member Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms for the past four months rendering it dysfunctional, sources told Business Recorder on condition of anonymity. The Committee consists of 22 MNAs including three women on reserved seats, Dr Shireen Mehrunnisa Mazari of PTI, Naeema Kishwar Khan JUI-F, Anusha Rahman Ahmad Khan of PML-N and 11 senators.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has seven members, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) four and the PTI and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) three each apart from other groups' representation. One-third of the committee members are from the Senate and the rest from the National Assembly.
The committee is headed by Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who publicly maintains that the delay in summoning a meeting of the committee is to try to convince the PTI to return to the assemblies and engage in the constitutional process of debating and agreeing on electoral reforms.
The PTI leadership insists on the establishment of a judicial commission to review the 2013 general election results as a precondition for its return to the assemblies. Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq constituted the Committee under Rule 224(b) of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of National Assembly 2007 after receiving a letter from the Prime Minister on June 10, 2014. He gave the committee three months to prepare its recommendations on electoral reforms - a time period that has been extended since.
The Committee faced its first setback when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members boycotted its proceedings following their resignations from the National Assembly and the party has not participated in any of its sessions since.
When this correspondent contacted some members of the Committee they could not recall when the last meeting was held. They were unaware of the future schedule though they all expressed the hope that the committee would meet after the Senate elections.
A sub-Committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Zahid Hamid to go through all laws and prepare recommendations. However, according to media reports, since Zahid Hamid's resignation as minister at the end of November, the sub-committee has been non-operative.
However, when contacted Zahid Hamid told Business Recorder that he did not resign from the membership of the Sub-Committee and maintained that he was the convenor of the Sub-Committee and its meeting would be held on Wednesday (March 4). He clarified that he could not convene a meeting of the sub-committee as he was out of country for his wife's treatment. He added that the sub-committee has almost completed the preparation of recommendations.
Sources revealed that the committee on electoral reforms has met about a dozen times and the sub-committee has met for a half a dozen sittings but insist that considerable work has been completed. The sub-committee had prepared a detailed report on the use of biometric system and use of electronic voting machines and also reviewed the work completed by earlier bodies of both the houses of parliament.